Month: June 2013

It’s soon to write a blog entry as the current season wrapped up but this is a Summer special. All I can say that it was a great opportunity to participate in The Community Cup for the second year and to support and represent CKCU-FM. What a way to start the Summer fun and a lead in to Canada Day.

I have to grin and bear it as Team CBC Ottawa beat Team CKCU to a score of 3-1. They took a nice revenge after a score-less tie from last year’s game. All in all, it’s for a good fun and no bitterness afterwards. You were awesome and a class act. It was also great to see Amanda Putz of CBC Bandwidth as I haven’t seen her around in quite awhile. Great to see get into the soccer spirit and downing Team CKCU.
I was able to shoot this video on Instagramof the post-game handshakes. Another Instagram video with Teri Loretto and Jewne Johnson doing the news. Lastly, I brought along the Fujifilm Instax Camera and the people were astonished to see the camera and instant film.

It was nice to have hosts of Fundamentally Sound and Debaser take part in this year’s Community Cup and there were a few other hosts as well. Kudos to DJ 2 Creamz for DJing at the event as well.
Time to recover from the pain.

Photos are posted on Flickr at this link. Some photos are posted on Facebook over at this link.
On the Summer edition of WildWorks on CKCU, I will be airing some of the reactions and thoughts from the teammates and a few from CBC Ottawa.
Have a great Canada Day! You can check the photos from Canada Day over at this link.

Update for July 3rd – Audio segment from The Community Cup is posted up. It consisted of reactions of teammates from CKCU and CBC Ottawa. An apology as I forgot to give thanks to the organizers of The Community Cup on the radio show.
The Wild 10 Countdown for July 3rd entry is over at this link.

I can’t believe the blog has gone on for eight seasons and as usual, it’s that time to wrap up the blog and radio show (currently on season four) for the Summer. On this week’s show, there was the interview with the Toronto band, Born Ruffians as they were in Ottawa on the weekend for the Tim Hortons Ottawa Dragon Boat Festival. You can listen to the interview below the entry. Note: The version on the blog is a full version as we discussed about social media. The radio show version was edited.
Apologies for the image as I forgot to get a photo with the band members.

Also on the show was the conclusion to the tribute to Beyond’sWong Ka Kui as June 30th marks the 20th anniversary of his death. The song choices for the Cantopop segment are the well-known Beyond tracks. One track I played was unusual choice and it’s an English song called Long Way Without Friends. Another classic song played which had significance back in 1990 and it was about Nelson Mandela. That song is 光輝歲月, which is translated as Glorious Days. We’ve been hearing about Mandela’s health in the news recently. It’s just fitting to play that song one more time as it’s another tribute to a fearless leader.

Due to the length of last week’s entry, I’m reposting the interviews with Chris Ho and Crissi Cochrane. In case you weren’t able to find it. They are posted alongside the Born Ruffians interview.Maestro Fresh Wes takes the number one spot for this week to end the month of June on The Wild 10 Countdown.
The playlist from the June 26th radio show (season finale) can be seen at this link.

Still having a bit of NXNE/Toronto withdrawal and if you kept up to date on my Facebook page, I posted a link from the CBC Music Presents The Beetle Roadtrip Sessions where there was a finale party in Toronto. Yes, I appear in the video. If you’re wondering why I have been wearing an aqua coloured vintage adidas jacket, it partly due to attending the 2012 edition House of Paint. I decided to wear the track jacket and wore it during my high school days in the 1990s, which still fits me.

Last thing, this ends the blog for another wonderful season. I know it’s confusing that it’s season eight and the radio show is season four. A big thanks goes out to Candice So as she helped out and contribute for the blog. We also had a great time interviewing bands and musicians. You’ve been awesome!
Another shoutout goes out to Lauren Bridle in joining me for the first half of season four of the radio show on CKCU.
The blog will be back in the Fall for season nine but expect a few Summer specials on the blog.

Have a great Summer.NOTE: I will not be doing any music interviews for the Summer. They will return in the Fall.Continue reading →

It was the second year to go to the big smoke, Toronto for NXNE. I definitely had a great time there and unfortunately, I ended up blowing out my left knee as I had to limp around from place to place. Blame it on carrying a shoulder bag full of cameras and an audio recorder. It was painful but was able to manage through the weekend. Here’s my description of events. Apologies if this is a very long blog entry for this week.

Friday (June 14, 2013)
The first band to check out was at Urban Outfitters on Queen St. W and it was the Vancouver Electronic band, Bear Mountain. I found out on Twitter from a fellow CBC R3 fan and a photographer that she and a couple of people were going to Urban Outfitters to see the band live. They were definitely good to check out for anyone that likes Electronic music.

Later on, I went to the CBC Broadcasting Centre to kill time and unexpectedly bumped into one of the members of The Matinee. By then, it was time for the CBC Music Presents The Beetle Roadtrip Sessions finale party at the Glenn Gould Studio. It was great to see the CBC Radio 3 fans/bloggers and some for the first time in person as I interacted on the R3 website, Facebook and Twitter. I finally got to meet Lana Gay as she’s one of the hosts I’ve interacted online but never got to meet in person as she was previously in Vancouver and has recently moved to Toronto. The Darcys performed for the finale party as well and played some of their hits. Bands from The Matinee, Shred Kelly and Hollerado showed up at the party. There was a funny moment when CBC Radio 3 host, Grant Lawrence did a crowd surf entrance from outside the CBC and inside Glen Gould Studio.

After the party, I tagged along with several people to go see k-os but found out we went to wrong location. Some of the guys were goofing off at Harbourfront and that’s when my knee starting buckling up. Some of us splited up and went with two people (Eric and Brenda) to check out The National. Unfortunately, it was very packed getting to Yonge-Dundas Square. Then I tagged along with Brenda to go see… Sloan! For the life of me, I felt like a newbie to see Sloan as I never got to see them live. They played at The Great Hall and crowds were packed to see them.
Afterwards, I went down to Blk Box to see Still Life Still and Gold & Youth. I didn’t stay for all of Gold & Youth as my knee was getting pretty sore.

Photos
Shows from Friday can seen over at this linkvia Flickr.
The CBC Music Present The Beetle Roadtrip Sessions finale party photos can be seen over at this link.
Photos on my Facebook Page can be seen at this link.

For the second year, I will be heading to Toronto for NXNE and this week’s radio show consisted of acts who will be playing at the music festival in Toronto. On this edition of the show, played were Chris Ho, Gold & Youth, The National and a bunch of others.
Starting off the live show was a brand new song from Maestro Fresh Wes as he will be releasing his new album, Orchestrated Noise. It will be out on June 25th. The track played featured Canadian soprano, Measha Bruggergosman. It’s a unique track as Hip-Hop meets Opera. To my own surprise, Bruggergosman tweeted with excitement that it was played on CKCU-FM.

It’s the second week play another tribute to Beyond’sWong Ka Kui as this year is the 20th anniversary of his tragic death.
This week’s song choices were from the 1988 album, Secret Police (秘密警察). The album cover is shown above for this week’s image pick. Although, the two songs didn’t have Wong Ka Kui on vocals and I forgot to mention on-air that it was Paul Wong, who did the vocals for the two songs. Ending the Beyond set was the song, Morning Train (早班火車), as I will be hopping on the train on Friday morning, barring no disruptions.

On the Wild 10 Countdown, Said The Whale is still number one for the third week. You can read the summary over at this link.
You can check the playlist from the live radio show over at this link.

Like this:

I was a bit stumped in writing something as I haven’t had any music interviews for the past month. Instead, I decided to blog about making Hong Kong Milk Tea as DAVIDsTEA came out with a recipe to making Hong Kong Milk Tea. It caught my attention as I like things about Hong Kong.
I decided to buy Kenyan Tinderet and didn’t expect to see the tea leaves looking like coffee. Worse part was not getting sweetened condensed milk until later in the night as I walked to the supermarket and bought one. It costed around three dollars as I’m not too familiar with it.

Onto making the tea, I boiled one litre of hot water (95 degrees Celsius) and added four spoonfuls of Kenyan Tinderet in a teapot. I didn’t use a pitcher as it got used for storing water. Later, I put 1/2 cup of sweetened condensed milk. I didn’t know it was gooey and sticky compared to liquid-y condensed milk. Mixed it together on a cup and measuring cup due to not using a pitcher (photo shown above). Added ice and it was done. The silly part was drinking from the measuring cup.

The verdict: It tasted sweet and nice. There was hint that you’re not really drinking tea. On their website, it mentioned “light honey” and I did felt a bit of a slight honey taste. Another thing that I was reminded of drinking Vitasoy.
Overall, a nice drink but had a complicated time in making due to not using a pitcher. I’ll definitely make another drink again.